Despair is an experience shared by many believers. Where they once felt a vibrant faith, they now feel asleep. Where scripture once carried them to heights of worship and joy, they now find it dull, if not dark and confusing. Community leaves them frustrated, because they can't seem to feel what everyone else is feeling. Worship and singing is emotionless, except for a subtle, simmering anxiety, and a growing despair that, what once felt real to you, no longer feels real at all.
If you have read any of my other writings, you likely know that I am no stranger to this landscape- the sometimes dry, sometimes monotonous desert of faith. I have often found myself plodding along in some direction, long ago predetermined, without any perceived guidance or encouragement as I walk. All the while I can only pray and hope that what I once held dear might still hold me.
One of the most beautiful passages in scripture is the story of the covenant cutting ceremony between God and Abram in Genesis 15. In it, God and Abram lay out their promises formally, and then prepare to vow their allegiance to one another.
There is much to be said of the form and function of a covenant ceremony in the Ancient Near East. In summary, two parties make a pact together. Stating what they require of each other, they then split several animals down the middle (long-ways) and lay them out, one half over against one another, all in a line. This creates a pathway of blood between the halves.* To ratify the covenant, both parties walk this blood-path. This walk is the sealing of the vow, and it is signifies a promise with consequences. It says, 'if I break my half of our covenant, let me be severed, like these animals.' Both parties walk, both parties promise, both are legally held responsible for their end of the deal. To break the covenant is to be severed. It is to die.
One important detail makes the covenant-cutting ceremony of Genesis 15 shockingly unique- Abraham does not walk the blood-path. Instead, God walks it. Twice. Which means, He promises to uphold both halves of the covenant. He says, 'If I break my vow to you, let Me be severed- but if you break your vow to Me, let Me be severed in your place. If I am faithless, I will die- but if you are faithless, then I will die in your stead.'
This is hugely significant. This is massive. Because it demonstrates that what is most essential to our relationship with the Lord is not our faith, but His. What is crucial is not our promise, but God's. He has made a covenant with us, His children, to give us the promised land, even when we fail. He will not suffer us to lose the inheritance He has given us. In fact, He suffers to ensure that we keep it.
But I noticed something new in that story last night, talking to a friend around a campfire. Abram is forcibly kept from walking the blood-path. It appears that God does not want Abram to think that upholding the covenant is his responsibility, even if Abram wanted it to be so. The Lord uses deep sleep, darkness and despair, to prepare Abram to see that it was never his faithfulness that secured him in relationship with God. It was God's faithfulness, and His promise that secured him all along.
Perhaps the reason so many of us wrestle with spiritual slumber, darkness, doubt and despair, is because the Lord has put us in it- not to punish us, but to show us something of Himself. Perhaps He keeps us from walking in easy faith, and in confidence in our faithfulness, in order to demonstrate to us that it was never our walking, never our faithfulness that saved or secured us. It was Him, walking for us. It was His promises, and His faithfulness. It was a covenant that He made, and that He fulfilled, when He was torn for us. Perhaps our darkness is intended to let His glory shine the brighter to us, to reveal that what we once held dear was all the while holding us. That would be very good news, indeed.
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*As I understand it, this blood-path is why we often use a red carpet at weddings- a sign of a serious covenant under the Lord.
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